I certainly never intended on creating Noron, or as you know it today, the Cursed Realm. Unfortunately, not all souls are neither good-intentioned nor orderly. There were many who wanted to cause trouble in the existing realms, and even more who planned to do so in Shirai. I had to do something in order to separate the obedient and orderly from the selfish and disorderly.
It all happened when the First Spinjitzu Master struck down the stone warriors. If you recall, their only life force was from the yami, and the dark matter itself is made up of lost souls. These lost souls could be sent to the Departed Realm… but they weren't, and instead, they were reduced to nothing more than dark matter in Oronai.
However, when the First Spinjitzu Master physically struck these souls down, they had no body to cling on to, no hook to grab and grip for their dear lives. And so I came, swooping them up in my cupped hands, and gliding away with the stone souls. Now, why didn't these souls just die in Oronai? They became captured within a special type of natural slime- basically the physical part of yami.
So when the souls did arrive in Shirai, they did not intend to obey the rules. Their thoughts were set on havoc and destruction, and their eyes gleamed the need to create chaos. Their untamed thoughts would only grow and become stronger, seizing full grip and using theirs souls as puppets. As they say, become the master of your mind, not its slave. These thoughts, only objects in their minds- controlling their every action! Who would have thought?
Well, for the reference, I definitely did not expect it coming. When they came to the Departed Realm, those same thoughts, that same urge to destroy had not been lost. The Helmet of Shadows only controlled their physical bodies. As the helmet had never been used yet, they could not obey anybody. They called their own shots.
Stone warriors roamed the streets and households in Shirai. Whether they were knocking on doors or barging through them, their actions disrupted the order and organization of Shirai. Eventually, the warriors came to my castle. That was when I snapped. I hastily created the Cursed Realm- a version of Shirai, but for sinners and the more greedy souls. I placed a beast known as the Preeminent there to guard it. Eventually, the beast turned on me, but that was millennia later.
I called it Noron, prison of sinners. I sent the stone warriors there. In fact, a significant portion of Morro's ghost army were souls from the yami. Whenever someone died, we judged their character to see if they should be sent to Noron or Shirai. If they were unforgiving and ruined lives of others, we would punish them. Such punishments included cages, chains, bathing in hot oil for eternity, and other vilely creative ideas. If they were simply evil, they were to simply roam around the land for the rest of their existence.
The realm itself was dark, dreary, and a sour, sickly smell lingered in the air. The loud howls of souls being tortured echoed throughout the humid, glowing green walls of the prison. You would see the prisoners of the land, their bloodshot eyes present with agony. You wouldn't feel sorry, for they deserved it. They deserved it very much. And the soft, squishy feeling of the pure black ground was unmistakable.
Noron grew much bigger over the decades, for more and more souls were sent there after death. Notable ones were Chen, Arcturus, Morro, Clouse, and Garmadon. Though only Morro was sent to the prison through death, Arcturus died in the Cursed Realm, and the remaining three were killed when the realm was destroyed.
Now, just to clarify, not all stone warriors were sent to Noron. Only a small portion of the army was sent there. The remaining portion of the army had been marooned on either the Dark Island or Ninjago. Their souls had decided to rest, and only something special could wake them from their slumber.
When we created Noron, we also formed a second realm to balance Noron. We tried our hand at creating new species, and we were quite successful. We gave them powers and an appearance that had never been seen before. The realm was truly gorgeous too. In addition, Noron and the second realm relied on each other; the destruction of one would lead to the other. This second realm was called Djinjago.